Thursday, October 28, 2010

Doctor on the Bayou

There was a time, other than The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie, that doctors made house calls.A time before waiting rooms and diagnostic centers and ten minute speed-treating, when doctors traveled to homes in the middle of the night, held their patient’s hand, and worried alongside panicked relatives.

There was also a time before insurance, before emergency rooms and HMO’s, a time when doctors accepted not only modest payment, but also chickens and vegetables and home-cooked meals.

George Rodrigue painted Doctor on the Bayou in the early 1980s from his mother’s recollection of early twentieth century New Iberia, Louisiana.In the 1920s these doctors made house calls from a horse and buggy, attending to everything from the common cold to childbirth to major ailments and injuries.

They more likely traded their services for goods rather than money, and their dedication established them as folkloric and cultural heroes in the bayou country.

(pictured, Dr. Thomas Bryan Pugh, center, with his brothers)

For his painting, just as with his original Jolie Blonde of 1974, George created his subject from his imagination.So imagine his shock when Lawrence Pugh, a good friend and a long-time member of the New Orleans Gallery staff, brought him several photographs of his great grandfather, a country doctor from Napoleonville, Louisiana with a remarkable likeness to the doctor in the painting.

According to Lawrence, his great-grandfather was a miracle child, plucked from the floodwaters at age three by a slave during the Last Island hurricane of 1856.*Saved by an unnamed hero, he became a hero himself, the only coroner for many miles, living to age ninety-eight, and awarded by the community on the occasion of his fiftieth wedding anniversary with a brand new car, a Ford Model T.

Like the distinguished Dr. Pugh, George’s Doctor on the Bayou knows local respect, reflected in his solitary, yet approachable and confident stance, prepared with his doctor’s bag for a house visit.In the painting, he stands not in shadow, but all in white, glowing like a ghost and framed within the dark oak tree, locked into Louisiana as an inseparable part of its culture.He stands on a dock where he could just as easily step onto a road as a river, reminding us that the Bayou Teche and the Mississippi River also transported these early physicians.

For the painting River Doctor1800 (above), commissioned along with the two paintings below by a Baton Rouge Hospital in the mid 1980s, Rodrigue researched old Louisiana medical photographs.The doctor with his nurse and family rode the riverboat (visible in the distance) to small villages, caring for the people that lived along the river.

George again researched old photographs to paint General Practice 1900 (above), depicting a later phase in medical history when small hospitals, wooden structures, provided permanent offices and examining rooms, known as ‘country clinics,’ for physicians.

In the painting Modern Medicine (above), George compares the teamwork put forth by today’s Louisiana health care workers to that of a kids’ football team, including his sons, André (yellow helmet) and Jacques (red helmet).In the mid-1980s he found himself like most young fathers at his kids’ sporting events, and it was an easy connection for him to relate the team work of a hospital staff to the team spirit of a child’s football team.

Finally, I leave you with one last photo of a pensive Dr. Pugh, along with a quote from “Two Ways of Seeing a River” by his contemporary (and look-a-like) Mark Twain, who weighs in with an observant, if not depressing, look at the challenges, heroism, and controversy surrounding the medical profession of his day:

“No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river.All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat.Since those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart.What does the lovely flush in a beauty’s cheek mean to a doctor but a ‘break’ that ripples above some deadly disease?Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay?Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn’t he simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself?And doesn’t he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?”(1883)

Wendy

*to learn more about Dr. Pugh’s story and the Last Island hurricane, see the book Last Days of Last Island:The Hurricane of 1856, Louisiana’s First Great Storm (Bill Dixon, 2009, University of Louisiana at Lafayette)

The original painting, Doctor on the Bayou, hangs in Lake Charles Memorial Hospital in Lake Charles, Louisiana.For information on the hospital’s ‘Art for the Soul Reception’ with George Rodrigue on November 11, 2010 contact Lake Charles Memorial Hospital.

George Rodrigue recently produced a fine art silkscreen of his original Doctor on the Bayou.For information contact Rodrigue Studio.

9 comments:

Thanks so much ,Wendy for this lovely remembrance of my Great Grandfather.TO continue the comparisons, the building my Grandfather , Dr. W.W. Pugh , built to house his medical office on the front of his property looks EXACTLY like the building in MODERN MEDICINE. Eerie , huh?Lawrence

"I am a fan of the Blue Dog paintings that I admired in the streets of New Orleans where I lived a year in 1996, George Rodrigue became famous. I have with me prints of Louis Armstrong and the Blue Dog and a crocodile and the Blue Dog. I like them very much. I am French and I live in Florida."

Wendy, My husband Phillip still makes house calls. He has sutured so many lacerations up and dowm Hwy 30-A in Walton County,Florida. Many on our picnic table or our couch in our house on Grayton Beach, FloridaBrenda Nunnery

This is cool. I'm glad to have the information. Thanks! I have River Doctor (the artist proof actually) and Modern Medicine. I don't have General Practice. I wonder why my mom didn't end up with the whole set. She bought them when she was in college in Louisiana. Thanks for the information!

I have a print? of General Practice 1900. It is signed and numbered 128 / 1000. It has the same blue stamp as the one shown on this blog, but I can't seem to find out anything about it. I love the works he did about the way medicine used to be. I was an RN for 11 years until I was diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2012. I haven't worked since. I wish there were doctors who still made house calls! How times have changed. In the old days you could trade something to your doctor for him to treat you. Now you have to mortgage your soul. On a passing note, May 1st is Lyme Disease awareness day. Wear your lime green to support us Lymies! Thank you! :-)

Sorry to bother you with this, but I was unsure who to ask. I have General Practice. It is numbered in pencil and signed in pencil. There is the little blue seal in the lower left corner. What does that little blue stamp mean in regards to the numbered print? Thank you so much for your time. The world is a better place for the art Mr. Rodrigue has left with us.

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About Me

I was born on a military base and raised in Fort Walton Beach, FL.
Attended Trinity University in San Antonio, TX, majoring in Art History and English, followed by European Art and Architecture in Vienna, Austria, and graduate school at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Worked for the Rodrigue Gallery in New Orleans and later Carmel, CA, beginning in 1991, and married George Rodrigue in 1997.
I've written guest columns for publications including Gambit, Country Roads Magazine, and Louisiana Cultural Vistas. As of 2017 I live between New Orleans, Louisiana and Santa Fe, New Mexico. I work extensively on George Rodrigue exhibitions and publishing projects, and lecture widely on his art.
I remain involved full-time within Rodrigue gallery operations and the George Rodrigue Foundation of the Arts, with an ongoing focus on preserving and enhancing Rodrigue's artistic and philanthropic legacy.
My first solo book, "The Other Side of the Painting" (UL Press), was published October 2013.